Apple SMC Driver Merged For Linux 6.17 To Be Able To Reboot Macs

The Apple System Management Controller (SMC) driver was successfully merged this week into Linux 6.17 for being able to reboot modern Apple M1 / M2 Macs under Linux (the Apple M3 / M4 Linux support remains in development). It's the latest improvement for Apple Silicon on the upstream Linux kernel compared to the downstream Asahi Linux code that has been carrying the SMC…
phoronix.com/news/Apple-SMC-Dr…

Linus Torvalds Continues Using A Radeon RX 580 Graphics Card, Back On An Intel Laptop

The AMD Radeon RX 480 / RX 580 "Polaris" graphics cards remain very popular on the Steam Survey and among enthusiasts/desktop users at large even though they are nearly a decade old. The nine year old Polaris graphics cards have aged well in the marketplace and are an affordable choice. For Linux users they continue enjoying strong open-source driver suppor…
phoronix.com/news/Radeon-RX-59…

Fedora Considers Hardlinking Identical /usr Files By Default For Deduplicating RPM Assets

Another change proposal filed recently for the Fedora Linux 43 release is to hardlink identical files within /usr by default for RPM-provided files that are 100% identical and can be then deduplicated to help conserve disk space and increase system efficiency...
phoronix.com/news/Fedora-Hardl…

Linux's Lockdown LSM Back To Being Maintained For Restricted Computing

Upstreamed to the Linux kernel back in 2019 was the Lockdown security module for opt-in hardware/kernel security restrictions. It was a difficult and contentious process getting to the Linux kernel but then was left without any formal maintainer shortly after being mainlined. Now for helping to renew this Linux security module, two developers have stepped up to takeov…
phoronix.com/news/Linux-Lockdo…

Linux Begins Preparing For The Lenovo Legion Go 2 Handheld

In recent days there have been an increasing flow of leaks surrounding the Legion Go 2 as the next-generation handheld from Lenovo. The Lenovo Legion Go 2 is reported to be launching later this year with an AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme SoC, 144Hz OLED display, and a variety of other hardware upgrades over the original Lenovo Legion Go. Linux driver activity around the Legion Go 2 ha…
phoronix.com/news/Linux-Starts…

Linux 6.17 Lands New Driver To Power On The T-HEAD TH1520 RISC-V SoC's GPU

The Linux 6.17 kernel has merged a new driver for powering up the Imagination PowerVR-based graphics processor found within the Alibaba T-HEAD TH1520 RISC-V SoC. This power sequencing driver is just for being able to power-up the GPU before the actual graphics driver can takeover...
phoronix.com/news/T-HEAD-GPU-P…

DietPi July 2025 Update Adds Orange Pi 3 Support and Prepares for Debian Trixie lxer.com/module/newswire/ext_l…

Linux's Landlock Security Module Lands New Maintainers To Avoid Bit Rot

Upstreamed to the Linux kernel back in 2021 was Landlock as a new means of unprivileged application sandboxing. It aimed to be very powerful and since being upstreamed four years ago has seen some minor enhancements and fixes but has been without any formal code maintainer. Thankfully two developers have stepped up to oversee this Linux security module going foreward...
phoronix.com/news/Landlock-New…

AMD Threadripper 9980X + 9970X Linux Benchmarks: Incredible Workstation Performance

Ahead of the Threadripper 9000 series hitting store shelves tomorrow, today the review embargo lifts on these new high-end desktop/workstation Zen 5 processors. I have been testing out the Threadripper 9970X and 9980X this month and have been extremely excited about the generational uplift and all-around performance of these new AMD Ryzen Thread…
phoronix.com/review/amd-thread…

Linux 6.17 Now Makes Multi-Core/SMP Support Unconditional

Earlier this year Linux kernel patches were posted for making SMP support unconditional so the kernel is always built for multi-core capabilities. With uniprocessor core environments being extremely rare especially for those that would be using an up-to-date, upstream Linux kernel, dropping non-SMP support would allow simplifying code paths within the kernel. Well, for Linux 6.1…
phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.17-U…

AMD Zen 5 CPUs See First Microcode Updates In Linux-Firmware.Git

AMD yesterday upstreamed a batch of new CPU microcode files to linux-firmware.git as the de facto repository where component firmware/microcode is easily distributed to Linux distributions. This also marks the first time that Family 1Ah (Family 26) CPU microcode is updated there for the latest Zen 5 processors...
phoronix.com/news/AMD-First-1A…